One of the things I've learned with time is that the overwhelming "love" we feel for a wandering spouse, especially at the beginning when the bomb is first launched, is often more FEAR than LOVE.
When you have been in a committed relationship for sometime, one that you thought was relatively secure, and then suddenly find that your spouse wants out...well, that brings an emmense amount of fear into our lives.
In an effort to pull them back in, we convince ourselves that we were madly and truly in love with them.
Gosh, if we were really that madly and truly in love with them, we likely would have never got to the point that they wanted to leave, eh?
That fear/love makes the intial stages of DB'ing incredibly difficult. I see it in thread after thread, especially in Newcomer's. Fear drives us to focus on the spouse, instead of ourselves. Fear drives us to clingy, needy behaviors that only reinforce our spouse's desire to leave. Fear makes us angry and vindictive, and that comes out usually at the worst possible times.
You can almost always tell when someone has finally conquered that fear. Almost overnight you see them lighten up and remove the direct and indirect pressure they were always trying to place on their spouse. Their outlook changes and suddenly things are managable, because they have finally realized that LIFE GOES ON.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
FTR. "Eric is not always on vacation"..IT takes time to write my post....I mean novels. LOL
As for this thread.. I agree with everyone's comments. Bill's comments on fear is so freaking true. We all feared the unknown, we all were afraid of change.( I know I was)....yet when we finally let go...(Or as I would say ...said f it) we come to realize so much about ourselves. We see (if we dig and are honest with ourselves) the things about ourselves that we like and do not like. We begin to really become who we were meant to be all along. We face our fears.
God Bless Eric
"The difficulties of Life are intended to make us BETTER,not bitter". "Fear is a prison, where you are the jailer. FREE YOURSELF!" "Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B." - Jack3Beans
BWORL, I am glad I read your post. I have just been grappling with my feeling lately, coz I am coming into this phase where :
1. I am questioning my love for my H...
I suddenly feel like I have lost it, I am wondering if I am done, I don't feel the physical attraction, and I am looking for explanations, I even am thinking of stirring the pot... I see now that my motive was perhaps to make the sitch more precarious and bring on fear and the feeling of love????
2. At the same time, I have never felt more happy, content, focused at work than I have been sionce tis whole thing started.
I must really be letting go.... PEI, everyting is falling into place!
Me:49 H:45 D:12 M:14 T:18 Bomb: 6/26/10 EA: 9/3/10, fizzled out slowly, now ??? 11/5/11 Retrouvaille Finally piecing.... Its peaceful at last, but we got a looong way to go
oops sorry for typos all over the place, I am typing secretly at work
Me:49 H:45 D:12 M:14 T:18 Bomb: 6/26/10 EA: 9/3/10, fizzled out slowly, now ??? 11/5/11 Retrouvaille Finally piecing.... Its peaceful at last, but we got a looong way to go
Me: 46 H:44 Together: 25 years Married: 20 years Separated: 11-30-06 Divorced 12-21-07 OW: EA began 2005 PA began end of 2006 3 children,20, 16, 6 ex asked for forgiveness 01/16/11
